Oak Ridge hosts final preseason scrimmage

With seven days to go until the Wildcats’ first game of the 2013 football season (at Farragut 7:30 p.m. Aug. 30), Oak Ridge High School’s football team hosted its last preseason scrimmage against Hardin Valley Academy on Tuesday, Aug. 20. With rain threatening earlier in the day, it was a perfect late summer night for football.

With seven days to go until the Wildcats’ first game of the 2013 football season (at Farragut 7:30 p.m. Aug. 30), Oak Ridge High School’s football team hosted its last preseason scrimmage against Hardin Valley Academy on Tuesday, Aug. 20. With rain threatening earlier in the day, it was a perfect late summer night for football. In fact, the crowd at Blankenship Field, by some estimates, rivaled the crowd size for actual games in recent years.

The scrimmage was conducted in a game format, except kick-offs and punts were not returned. Official time was kept, however the score wasn’t indicated on the score board.

The Oak Ridge defense took control of the line of scrimmage from the opening series, while the offense struggled at times to move the ball consistently. Though Hardin Valley drove the ball deep into Oak Ridge territory early in the first half, a missed field goal attempt by the visiting Hawks left the scrimmage scoreless at the end of the first period.

Despite going scoreless in the first quarter, an early interception by Tommy Kaczocha (Ka-cho-ah) and a big defensive hit by Oak Ridge toward the mid-quarter were among the first-period highlights for Wildcat fans.

Oak Ridge scored its first touchdown in the second quarter when Riley Myer intercepted a Hardin Valley pass. Following a successful kick by Brandon Nickle, the ’Cats found themselves up 7-0.

The Oak Ridge defense again set the offense up with a short field, when a hard hit by Jaleel Luster forced a Hawks’ turnover recovered by Richard Turner. A few plays later, after Jordan Dunbar torpedoed his way to the 2-yard line, an Isiah Jones touchdown and Brandon Nickle PAT made the score 14-0 Oak Ridge with 5:25 left in the first half.

With the Hawks once again starting from their own territory, Wildcat cornerback Kaczocha intercepted another HVA pass. With the Oak Ridge offense taking advantage of another short field, quarterback Dunbar ran it in from the 5-yard line. Nickle’s PAT made the unofficial score 21-0. Oak Ridge took the ball for a final time in the second quarter, and managed three more points on an impressive 40-yard field goal by Nickle with under a minute left on the clock. Varsity play ended at the end of the first half with a score of 24-0.

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Hardin Valley managed to find the end zone once against the Wildcats’ second team and JV players in the third quarter, but failed to convert the PAT. Oak Ridge freshman wide receiver Tee Higgins would score the final TD of the night for the Wildcats on a 21-yard run, while the Hardin Valley freshmen got their lone touchdown on a 34-yard run.

The freshmen Hawks’ PAT attempt was stopped short up the middle by the Oak Ridge defense — making the final unofficial score 32-6.

Page 2 of 2 - After the scrimmage, Oak Ridge coach Joe Gaddis commented on his team’s performance. “Defensively, we really got after it,” he said. “We just took it to them physically.

“The Old School football people would be thrilled with the way we played on defense and the way our kicking game was.”

He said that with five quarterbacks in the rotation (Jaylin Henderson is still limited), “We’re going to have to cut back on the number of quarterbacks.

“We’re to the point where we’ve got to make that call, even though the answer is not obvious,” Gaddis said. “All have their own strengths and have been doing pretty well.”

The returning coach indicated that he expects to reduce the number of quarterbacks in the rotation with the starting unit, but that he expects to still have at least two players sharing the first-team slot. “I’m not much for a two-quarterback system, but I think — in this instance — we’ll probably go with that at the beginning of the year.”

Though he believes the progress of the offense is behind the defense, the offense is about where he expected it to be. Additionally, “as we pare down a couple of positions, we’ll be better prepared next Friday than we were Tuesday night because they’ll get a lot more reps over the course of the week and a half between the scrimmage and the season-opener.”

When asked about the crowds gathered during the last two scrimmages and the support he is seeing from the community, coach Gaddis remarked: “I’m thrilled with the crowd. The crowd was phenomenal”.